reason + experience: empiricism

Outline and illustrate the difference between belief and knowledge.

A belief can be true without having any evidence or justification, for example, believing that a horoscope is true, although there has been evidence to suggest that astrology doesn't make accurate predictions. Whereas knowledge needs support and a reason for thinking that what is believed is true; knowledge needs to be justified.

Come up with three examples of analytic propositions and synthetic propositions.

Analytic (true or false just in the virtue of the meaning of the words; definitional):
- a square has four sides
- all bachelors are unmarried men
- a spinster is an unmarried woman

Synthetic (true or false in the virtue of the way the world is):
- snow is white
- grass is green
- soil is brown

Explain and illustrate the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge.

A priori knowledge is knowledge of propositions that do not require sense experience to be known or true. For example, 'a square has four sides' - we know that the meaning of the word 'square' is a four-sided shape, therefore we don't need to check via sense experience to know that the proposition is true. Whereas with a posteriori knowledge, sense experience is required for a proposition to be known or true - for example, the proposition 'snow is white': actual sense experience of snow is required to know that it snow is white.

Explain and illustrate the difference between rationalism and empiricism.

Rationalism claims that we can have synthetic a priori knowledge of how the world is outside of the mind, i.e. it is possible to know (some) synthetic propositions about the world is (outside our own minds) without relying on sense experience, for example, about morality, mathematics or the physical world.  Empiricism denies that this is possible i.e. it states that we can't have synthetic knowledge about how the world is without the use of sense experience.

A strength of empiricism is that the sources of knowledge are easy to recognise - we simply gain knowledge through our senses by perceiving how the world is; a casual process. Whereas rationalism isn't as simple - rationalists either argue that we have a form of rational 'intuition', or 'insight' which enables us to grasp certain truths intellectually, or that we know certain truths innately.

Explain and illustrate Locke's argument against innate ideas.

Locke argued that ideas cannot be innate because the mind is empty at birth/a blank slate (what he called a 'tabula rasa') - he states that for ideas to be part of the mind from birth we must be conscious of them, but argues that there aren't ideas which are universally known. If this were the case, for example, then even children and 'idiots', would be aware of them. However, it is clear that there are ideas that are known to some, but not others, thus, ideas cannot be innate.

However, it could be argued that the reason children and 'idiots' don't appear to have the same ideas as others is because the innate idea can only be realised with the use of reason, of which children and 'idiots' have not yet developed, thus supporting that ideas can be innate, they just need reason to be realised. However, Locke argued that it is not the use of reason which is necessary, but the development of concepts, for example, the concept of equality is needed to work out 3+3=6. Therefore, concepts must be acquired first so propositions can't be innate, because if they were we wouldn't have to acquire concepts in the first place; we would just know them. Therefore, because no concepts are innate, no propositions can be innate, thus all concepts derive from sense experience.

Compare and contrast Locke's idea of innate ideas with the rationalist view of innate ideas.

Locke's definition of 'innate' ideas differs from the accepted definition amongst rationalists, which is known as nativism. Locke states that the mind is a 'tabula rasa' (empty at birth) and that there are no ideas known from birth, whereas nativism states that ideas have to be triggered to be known, rather than automatically being known from birth. Thus, rationalists argue, that the ideas themselves are still innate, but need some kind of trigger for one to become conscious of them.

For example, in the study of animal behaviour, some baby birds only need to hear a little bit of its species' birdsong to be able to sing itself - this could be explained by saying that birdsong itself is innate, but needs to be triggered for the bird to become fully conscious of it.

Another example is in babies - the ability to learn and speak and language develops at 18 months; rationalists argue that we are genetically coded to speak languages (i.e. they are innate) and sense experience unlocks this ability. Thus, experience still has a role, as the relevant stimuli is needed to trigger something in the first place, however, the ability itself is innate as it's genetically coded.

Explain Locke's idea of how we acquire concepts.

Locke argues that the mind is a blank slate from birth; next, sense experience lets in particular ideas, as this happens through repetition these ideas begin to stay in our memory. In our memory we label these ideas and eventually group them into 'types' - for example, through experiencing the colours red, yellow and blue, we begin to group them and form the concept of 'colour'.

However, a flaw in Locke's theory is that he fails to recognise the difference between sense perception and ideas themselves e.g. the sensation of yellow (seeing it) isn't the same as the concept of yellow. Hume corrects this mistake by taking Locke's ideas a little further - he recognises the role perception plays. However, he states that 'perceptions' are divided into 'impressions' and 'ideas', and further, that 'impressions' are divided into impressions of 'sensation' and impressions of 'reflection'. Impressions of sensation are derived from sense experience, for example, seeing a car. Whereas impressions of reflection are derived from experience of our mind, for example, feelings emotions.

Hume then argues that ideas are 'faint copies' of impressions - he explains this by explaining how the memory of hearing a song, or seeing a scene is fainter/weaker than the actual memory itself; thus, they are faint copies. Like impressions, he divides ideas into ideas of 'sensation' (e.g. the idea of red), and ideas of 'reflection' (e.g. the idea of sadness). Therefore, explaining Hume's theory of how we acquire concepts; by copying them from impressions. Hume's theory is an improvement on Locke's as he recognises that it is not sensory impressions themselves that we remember and use in thinking, but copies of them, thus correcting the obvious distinction between sensory perception and ideas.

Outline and illustrate the empiricist theory of concept acquisition.

Empiricist's believe that we acquire concepts through the use of simple and complex ideas - they believe that simple impressions are the basis of all thought and experience, for example, single colours, shapes and smells. Once we have these simple ideas, we can form more complex ones; for example, the idea of a dog is made up of many ideas of colour, shape and smell, therefore we can identify it as a dog by using our senses.

Abstraction can also be used to form complex ideas - for example, the concept 'dog' doesn't have one particular set of impressions or any single dog (i.e. there are many different types of dogs), so through abstraction specific features are ignored (e.g. ignore different colours and sizes of dogs) and focus on similarities (such as four legs, tail, hairy, bark).

Explain and illustrate the empiricist account of complex concepts.

Locke and Hume argue that new concepts can only be created from the materials provided by impressions - no idea, no matter how abstract or complex, is more than putting together, altering or abstracting from impressions. This is because all complex ideas are composed of simple ideas, and simple ideas are copies of impressions. This argument explains how we can have ideas about complex ideas of which cannot have been derived from sense experience, for instance, unicorns. Empiricists would argue that the complex idea of a 'unicorn' comes from our experience of horses, horns and whiteness (the features which make up a unicorn).

Explain Hume's analysis of the concept SELF, is it possible that there are no 'selves', just thoughts and feelings.

Hume claimed that we don't actually have knowledge of the 'self' as a concept, but that we are mistaken into thinking we do through mistaking the similarities in our experiences with the idea of a 'thing' with identity. By 'similarities', he refers to our continuous thoughts and feelings that appear to be similar to the idea of the 'self' as a thing that exists. However, they are not the same thing, therefore he concludes that there is no such thing as the 'self', but rather a continuous experience of sensory existence.

However, rationalists argue that this would imply that our ideas about the world and the way we perceive it are wrong, which is implausible. The very fact that our concepts are coherent in the way we experience the world (e.g. the fact that we can form the idea of the 'self' in the first place), only shows that we must have innate ideas, since they cannot be proven to be derived from sense experience. Furthermore, while rationalists agree with Hume in recognising that we can't derive these concepts from sense experience alone, they argue that rather than entirely dismissing the existence of these concepts all together (as Hume argues is correct), it is far more plausible to argue that these are innate concepts that are being triggered by our experience.

Explain and illustrate Hume's division of knowledge into two kinds.

Hume's 'fork' theory divides knowledge into two kinds: relations of ideas and matters of fact. Relations of ideas is also known as a priori (doesn't require sense experience to be known or true), which also must mean that it is analytic (true or false just in the virtue of the meaning of the words). For example, all sons have fathers. Relations of ideas refers to a posteriori knowledge (knowledge that requires sense experience) and synthetic propositions (true or false in the virtue of the way the world is).

Hume states that, because all a priori knowledge is analytic, it can't tell us anything about the world, for example, to work out the sum 1+1=2, we are simply relating the ideas of 1, 2, + and =; we aren't learning anything new about the world. Whereas, in cases of matters of fact, we are learning about the world.

Outline Hume's theory of our knowledge of matters of fact.

Hume's theory of our knowledge of matters of fact states that it is a posteriori, thus it requires sense experience to be known. An example of this is receiving a letter with a French postmark and knowing that it is from France - the reason we can know this is because is based on previous experience of different postmarks, letters being posted, realising that postmarks relate to where you post something from etc; without this previous experience, we wouldn't be able to comprehend where the letter is from.

Hume also realised that past experience doesn't make for completely certain knowledge - in the aforementioned example, he recognises that it can't be certain that the letter was from France. This is because knowledge of matters of fact ultimately relies on induction and probability-based reasoning.